22 
Annual Reports of Academy of 
Report of the Curators. 
The exhibition halls of the Museum have been open free to the 
public throughout the year from 9 A. M. to 5 P. M. on week days, 
and from 1 to 5 P. M. on Sundays, and large numbers of visitors 
have availed themselves of the privilege of viewing the exhibits. 
The increase in the number of schools and classes accompanied by 
teachers, both from Philadelphia and nearby towns, has been very 
noticeable. 
Additions have been made to many of the exhibits. Several 
valuable mammals presented by the Zoological Society of Phil¬ 
adelphia have been mounted, and several game heads and mounted 
fishes received from Miss Anne Thomson have been hung in the 
halls. 
In the entrance hall the plan has been adopted of arranging on 
temporary exhibition collections or groups which will ultimately 
be placed in their respective departments. A group of muskrats 
showing a winter “lodge” or “muskrat-house” from the Delaware 
River marshes near Salem, N. J., procured for the Museum by Mr. 
Benjamin A. Carpenter; on it are several of the rats secured by Dr. 
Henry R. Wharton and the smaller rice rats which make their nests 
in the walls of the muskrat house. This is one of a series of groups 
of the local mammals of Pennsylvania and New Jersey which it is 
proposed to install. As a special exhibit two cases containing 
specimens of the more common mammals of the vicinity of Phila¬ 
delphia have been arranged near by. 
The collection of crabs and mollusks illustrating the life of the 
New Jersey coast marshes, presented recently by Dr. Witmer Stone, 
has been arranged in special cases in the entrance hall. Also a 
collection illustrating the rocks of the vicinity of Philadelphia and 
their stratigraphic relationship; and a collection illustrating the 
moulting of birds and the varied structure of bird plumage. These 
collections have attracted much attention, especially from school 
children. 
During the spring months an exhibition of birds from the study 
